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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22571461">Peas and Carrots</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeanwhileMelody/pseuds/MeanwhileMelody'>MeanwhileMelody</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shameless (US)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A little anti-army, A lot of Forrest Whump, Apparently I declare Forrest Gump a formative work in Ian Gallaghers life?, Canon typical boning, Ian and the army, Ian had a dream, Ian's inner dialog is BACK, Like, M/M, Terry- a literal nazi, Weed, canon typical homophobia, no really, this is angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 09:48:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,881</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22571461</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeanwhileMelody/pseuds/MeanwhileMelody</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian watches Forrest Gump. A lot. (Which is to say that Ian was parented by the southside, the Gallagher television, and now I'm writing a lot about why he wanted to grow up and go to the army, and how it impacted him to have to re-evaluate who he wanted to be, who he is now, and who he wants to become. This is a lot of stream of consciousness about dreams, and love, and expectations, and identity)</p><p>Mostly summed up in this quote from Forrest Gump:</p><p>Jenny: Do you ever dream, Forrest? About who you're gonna be?</p><p>Forrest: Who I'm gonna be?</p><p>Jenny: Yeah?</p><p>Forrest: Am I gonna be me?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Peas and Carrots</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Forrest Gump reruns used to play on the TV at 2 a.m. on Wednesdays. Channel 53, like clockwork, same commercials in between and everything. Ian thought he must’ve seen the same woman try and pretend she was happy to get the same charm bracelet for his entire adolescence. </p><p> </p><p>Ian could’ve watched SVU, or Forensic Files, or late night with some comedian with veneers and a couple sexual assaults on the downlow. But Ian had always watched Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump, had it all. It had the hero, it had the girl, it had an ending, some enemies to fight and most of the time the good guys won, which seemed to check out. It was a Disney movie that was allowed to curse and blow things up and show a girl in her bra. </p><p> </p><p>Around the fifteenth time through Forrest Gump, at 3:15 a.m., Ian decided being a soldier was a pretty good career. </p><p> </p><p>He was in fifth grade and realism had set in. Some people in his grade still had those big ‘when I grow up’ dreams, but Ian had grown up watching grown ups. His options weren’t to be a marine biologist or a singer or an architect. He was going to be lucky to be a high school graduate with no track marks or felony arrests. </p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, Lip got texts. A lot of smart kids did. The kids that their test scores got reported up to the higher powers and the higher powers said ‘Good afternoon such and such, my name is Major Sergeant Greer, and I am contacting you to discuss your interest in our academic programs for young men and women in the Chicagoland area. You are applicable for-’ </p><p>“For free college?” Ian’s head would hang off his twin mattress while Lip smoked. Lip always looked so fuzzy, like someone on TV while he smoked. Damn, they really needed a better TV. </p><p>“To get my head blown off.” Lip couldn’t do smoke rings, or exhale from his nose, but he tried. He always just ended up holding his smoke in too long while he bent his tongue around the trick, and then exhaling in a puff that occluded his entire face. Fuzzy. “Not like I’m going to be perusing my physics textbooks in the trenches.” </p><p>Ian didn’t think they did much trench warfare any more, but Lip was on it, his hands were moving a mile a minute, and despite Ian’s increasingly irritated gestures to pass the joint, it just waved around wildly from where it was clenched between his knuckles. </p><p>“They say they’re gonna give you college, man. But that’s if you live, and if you can still function enough to sit in a classroom. They give you this skillset called kill people and then what? You just stop? You just go back to- Shakespeare?”</p><p>The joint had canoed, and all that fucking waving had made it go out. When Ian finally snatched it, it was almost useless to re-light it. He didn’t bother cutting Lip off, because Lip was really getting going, and Ian was finally getting his buzz, but there was a faint sound of sirens outside and a bat behind the door. It was pretty useless to re-light that joint, but. Waste not, want not. Ian took a hit that was mostly ash and thought of the movie Forrest Gump, and how when Forrest had come home, he’d been a hero, and how Jenny had kissed him in the fountain. He thought about how lucky he would be to come back to Shakespeare instead of sirens. </p><p>ROTC was easy for Ian. He put on muscle and the drills were just follow orders and do what someone says, which is all anyone does until they die, so far as Ian could tell. Ian understood Forrest Gump a lot better since eighth grade. He credited some of this to Lip, most of it to the internet, and a very small amount to some kids he hung around with when he had free time and there were too many people in the house for him to jack off. </p><p>He still wanted to be in the army, but now he knew he wanted to be a marine, specifically. Marines were the toughest out in the army, and the Navy were gay. A lot of stuff was gay, actually, especially in the army, and by extension, in ROTC. Ian’s freckles were gay, his hand me down t-shirts from Lip which had used to be red but had been wash-faded pinkish were gay, and Ian was-</p><p>Ian definitely wanted to be a marine. So he pushed a few of the right people and made a few ‘seamen’ jokes and in the showers he joked about not dropping the soap and looked faithfully at the tile and nowhere else. He scrubbed his skin red and then went home. </p><p>A lot of people were unrealistic about love. That’s what Ian had thought he’d liked about the love story in Forrest Gump. That Jenny hadn’t really loved Forrest like people think love should be. But that she’d loved him, Ian thought, and Forrest had loved her, and that had been okay, and there had been enough love to keep them going.</p><p>Sometimes Ian wondered if some of the guys in the army ever fucked. </p><p>By freshman year, after a summer in the freezer, Ian had done a lot of research on the attitude of the US Military towards gay soldiers. He decided that he’d just have to change a lot of minds. </p><p>Mickey Milkovich was probably puberty, Ian thought, after the first time they fucked. Maybe he was a good story, because Ian was a sucker for a good story. Ian liked the romance of a good story, he liked how it all fit together to have the chase and the gun and the fight and the climax. He didn’t really get the ending, though. </p><p>Because they didn’t really have an ending. </p><p>“You know what to do with that thing?” </p><p>Ian could probably dismantle the gun faster than Mickey could shoot it, but he just stared blankly over his shoulder and played with the safety. </p><p>“Yeah, no, I’ve got it.” The safety was on, and the gun was so close to his face that recoil would kick him in the jaw if he fired. Ian didn’t even bother to hide his maniacal grin when Mickey came up behind him, grumbling, smacking his arm, adjusting him roughly, taking his beretta and adjusting it for him. </p><p>“You got it now? God damn, Gallagher, if I’d known I was taking my own life into my hands arming an amateur-” Ian made three bottles and a can. He missed the last beer, but that still had a sip in it, so he could play that one off by drinking it. It was disgusting, and warm. Leaking, so he’d grazed it, and it got on his fingers.</p><p>Though he was not impressed that there was no more beer and Ian had tried to blow his ear drums out, Mickey still let Ian get one in, let him jerk him off with his sticky fingers. </p><p> </p><p>After, they sat together and Ian played with Mickey’s shoes, undoing his laces and then doing them back up, while Mickey watched him in either annoyance or awe.  Straight laces. Ladder laces. </p><p>“People are gonna think I’m some skinhead punk.” Mickey said, and he looked good shirtless and lying back. His nipples were pink, and he had the kind of fat on him that meant there was muscle under it. It wasn’t woman-fat, that was soft, and gave under your fingers, just like Mickey’s skin wasn’t soft. He was firm, and his skin was a little bit rough and he had hair on his belly and back and between his legs. Affectionately, Ian threw the left shoe to land on Mickey’s gut so there was a small ‘uff’. </p><p>“So? I’ve been in your room. You’re a buzzcut and a tattoo away from the SS.” When Mickey threw the shoe back, Ian knew he was aiming at his crotch, but Ian caught it, in what he considered a personal triumph. Mickey was frowning at him, though, and patting for a cigarette in his jeans. </p><p>“You know I’m not on that shit.”</p><p>It was just something Mickey had grown up around, like guns and drugs and Terry. Ian unlaced Mickey’s shoes, and leaned back over him, kissing around his jaw so that he wouldn’t start a fight, and grabbed his hands. Held them. </p><p>Sometimes Mickey didn’t like Ian touching, usually after the afterglow had worn off and right before someone was about to leave, because that’s when it was over, and over meant done with. “Let me just get on you.” Sometimes Ian was confused as to whether Mickey wanted Ian to be done with him at all. Mickey didn’t push him off. </p><p>Ian had been very clear on what enemies were his whole life. He thought he had to be, to do what he wanted to do. There was supposed to be an us and a them. We are good and we are right. And what if we’re not?</p><p>Very drunk, Ian had thought ‘Mickey and Ian is an us’. Terry is a them. Mickey did not think that MickeyandIan were an us. Or that they were good. And when had that happened? What a small scale this had happened on, just two people, three if you counted Terry, but now Ian got that enemies weren’t universally agreed upon and you didn’t get to decide who sided and stayed with you. He thought he had understood that before. </p><p>The army didn’t work out. (That is all Ian had to say about that.)</p><p>Except that:</p><p>See, Ian had thought that he had very realistic dreams. Since fifth grade, he thought that out of everyone, he had the most reliable life plan. He was going to go to school, and join the army and find someone who loved him. How does one fuck that up? How does one fuck up everyone else’s plan B? Lip used to tell him that the army preys on kids like them from a ‘lower socioeconomic class’ because they have nowhere else to turn, and Ian, his dream, was the nowhere else to turn. He wanted to go to the army and have someone to love him. And sometimes he told himself that if he got more, he’d want to be great at it. He’d want to be a hero, he’d want to be special, he’d want to be something. He’d want to be so loved, not just loved enough to keep him going, but loved like people want to be loved and think of being loved when they’re asleep and they’re allowed to not hold themselves back. He didn’t think it was asking so much, really. That it was the kind of dream that people dream and then get disappointed by.<br/>
He’d watched that movie so many times that he’d forgotten to remember about the people who write movies for the people who watch movies.<br/>
And how they must write ‘The end’ at the end, and think- </p><p> </p><p>Suckers. </p><p>He wonders if they won an Oscar. </p><p>He looks it up later. ‘Best adapted screenplay’. They sure did.</p>
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